Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Editor’s Note: This year marks the Bicentennial, 2024-2025, of Lafayette and his farewell tour, “Guest of the Nation”, which took place August 15, 1824-September 7, 1825. To commemorate the occasion, the LaGrange Daily News will be publishing a series of columns by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette.

Week of May 12, 1825

Louisville set aside $200 for Lafayette’s visit.  Citizens “are requested to furnish themselves with Lafayette badges, which can be had at the Louisville Bookstore.”  The parade and reception threaded up Main Street to Third Cross Street to Jefferson to Fifth Cross Street to Lafayette’s lodging at Union Hall.  After a second reception, Lafayette and Governor Carroll of Tennessee called on Fanny and Camilla Wright, who had been tagging along. 

People in Louisville were aware Lafayette had lost baggage in the shipwreck the week before, including his Bolivar hat: black satin, wide brim, the popularity of which peaked in the 1820’s.  Hatter Norborne Erickson gave Lafayette a new one, refusing payment and considering the gift “a part of the debt he,” Erickson, owed Lafayette.  Word of mouth then made the “Lafayette Hat” an item, and Erickson was ready.

At 11 AM, May 12th Lafayette boarded the steamboat “General Pike” to cross the Ohio River to the opposite shore to visit Jeffersonville, Indiana.  He was greeted by Indiana Governor James B. Ray, escorted to the mansion of former Governor Posey on the corner of Front and Fort Streets for speeches and a reception; at 3 PM a formal dinner under an arbor 220 feet long; and at 6 PM back aboard the “General Pike” to Louisville.

Next morning Lafayette left Louisville; the “Paragon” had returned to New Orleans and he would travel over land to Cincinnati by way of Lexington.

The rain was so heavy, the roads so muddy, Lafayette and the four governors with him—Joseph Desha of Kentucky, William Carroll of Tennessee, James B. Ray of Indiana, and William Pope Duval of the Territory of Florida—made an unscheduled stop for the night at Magowan’s Tavern, Shelbyville, Kentucky.

The troupe arrived the next day at Captain Robson’s Tavern, one mile out from Frankfort, now the capital of Kentucky, at 4 PM.  Lafayette’s cavalcade paraded through town to Captain Weisiger’s House where Lafayette stayed.  Forty revolutionary war soldiers, each with a large “76” on his hat, greeted him as Governor Desha gave an official welcome.

Desha’s ceremonial good cheer was overshadowed by a heavy personal burden.  His son was on trial for murder and chances were good he would be convicted and hanged.  As governor, Desha had the power to pardon, but this would, in the eyes of many, flaunt justice.  Some said he should resign and remove himself from the crosshairs of contention.  Levasseur was “struck afterwards by the courage with which he appeared to me to endure his misfortune; with a noble confidence he raised his venerable head high among his fellow citizens.”  His son was convicted; he pardoned him and it cost him.

An elegant dinner after the reception and parade, out of doors on the Public Square, for 800 guests, at a cost of $2000, with thirteen toasts and nineteen speeches.  A Lafayette Ball to cap the evening.

At 10 AM next morning Lafayette stood in the rain to shake hands with every man in the Lafayette Guards before leaving Frankfort. 

At 2 PM he stopped at Versailles, a small hamlet of 900; a reception at Mayo’s Inn, lunch at noon.  By nightfall he was within five miles of Lexington and slept at “Keeneland,” the estate of Major John Keene.

He arrived at Lexington on May 16th, escorted in a parade by Fayette Hussars.  Sitting by himself on a fencepost was thirteen-year-old Lewis Hayden, born into slavery in 1811, now come to get a glimpse of Lafayette.  “When he passed me,” recalled Hayden, “he bowed to the fence I was on.  I looked around and saw no one else on the fence, and what did I do but roll right down on the ground, frightened almost to death; Lafayette was the most famous man I had ever heard of, and you can imagine how I felt, a slave-boy to be favored with his recognition.  That act burnt his image upon my heart so that I never shall need a permit to recall it.  I date my hatred of slavery from that day, and I tell you that after I allowed no moving thing on the face of the earth to stand between me and my freedom.”  Hayden was instrumental in the Underground Railroad, and he helped establish many charters for the Prince Hall Freemasons.

Lafayette visited Transylvania College where he was conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws.  One student delivered an ode in Latin; Lafayette surprised everyone by rising, shaking hands with the student, and congratulating him in Latin.  Lafayette at the College du Plessis in Paris had been a Latin scholar.  At 4 PM he visited the Lexington Female Academy, which was renamed Lafayette Academy.  Later, a visit to Henry Clay’s home “Ashland,” which was designed by Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the U. S. Capitol.  Clay was not there; Lafayette paid his respect to Mrs. Clay and her children.

Matthew Harris Jouett was the son of Captain John “Jack” Jouett known as “Paul Revere of the South” for his forty-mile dash on June 14, 1781, to warn Thomas Jefferson of a British raid; Jefferson was nearly captured.  Matthew graduated from Transylvania College, studied law and left it for painting.  He studied with Stuart Gilbert in Boston.  On January 12, 1825, the Kentucky legislature commissioned Jouett to paint a life-size portrait of Lafayette to be hung in Representatives Hall, Frankfort.  Governor Desha on February 3, 1825, notified Jouett; Jouett accepted on February 9 and traveled to Washington February 11, arriving February 25, for a sitting with his subject only to find out Lafayette had left on his southern tour February 23.  On May 17 they met at Frankfort for a one hour sitting.  That portrait hangs in the Old State House on the Old Square in Frankfort.  On December 21, 1825, the legislature passed a resolution paying Jouett $1500.

A spectacular “Lafayette Ball” the evening of the 17th, featuring life-size transparencies of Daniel Boone and Napoleon, climaxed with the unveiling of a singular, large “Lafayette Cake,” surrounded by American flags, and covered with do-dads.  The confectioner was Hume Mathurin Giron, famous New Orleans confectioner, under the direction of Mr. Audin, a resident artist.

Lafayette departed Lexington to ride eighteen miles to Georgetown to visit “Blue Spring,” the estate of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, United States Senator and twelve years later Vice-President.  A banquet and reception featured a 500-pound cheese.  Lafayette spent the night five miles from Georgetown at Gaines Tavern.

He got an early start at 4 AM for the 85 mile trip from Lexington to Cincinnati; by noon he reached Covington, Kentucky; crossed the Ohio River in a state barge manned by six husky oarsmen; and into Cincinnati where a red carpet awaited him, which he sidestepped, saying, “The soil of America is good enough for me.”  He was welcomed by Governor Jeremiah Morrow of Ohio, and General William Henry Harrison, chairman of the Reception Committee and Senator from the state of Ohio who would later serve the shortest presidential term ever, March 4-April 4, 1841.  His motto would be “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”  After the procession, there were fireworks, and a Masonic dinner.  He spent the night at the home of Mr. C. C. Febeger on Vine Street, whose father Christial Febeger commanded a company in Lafayette’s army in the Virginia campaign.